Mandeville police officers have a new set of eyes watching over them on the street.

A new system of cameras, microphones, video screens and recording devices was recently installed in all patrol cars. The system, which replaces an archaic and infrequently used set of video cameras in the cars, is designed to ensure accountability from officers and protect them from frivolous complaints, Capt. Ron Ruple said.

Department officials have promoted the system more as a means of shielding law enforcement from complaints than as a "big brother" system to check up on officers.

The recordings will allow the department to prevent complaints from devolving into cases that put an officer's word up against that of a citizen, officer Eric Gulino said. Instead, the department will be able to turn to the recordings as a dispassionate eyewitness.

"Now you have a way to say, 'There's no way that happened, ' " said Gulino, who heads the department's community policing efforts.

As in most other St. Tammany Parish law enforcement agencies, patrol cars in Mandeville have been equipped with video cameras for years. However, the old system relied on patrol officers to manually activate the cameras, which would record video on VHS decks stored in the cars' trunks.

"In seven or eight years, I don't think we turned in one single tape" as evidence, Ruple said.

The new cameras take the issue out of the hands of officers. The system is always on, and cameras begin recording every time a cruiser's lights and sirens are activated. The system also switches on when sensors detect a crash, saving not only the aftermath but several seconds of the lead-up to the accident.

All that video and audio is automatically sent through a wireless connection to police computers every time a patrol car returns to headquarters.

Cops won't have to wait until returning to the station to view those videos, however. Officers are able to view the videos on small screens in their cars so they can note details such as license plates and descriptions while looking for a suspect. Ruple acknowledged some bugs in the system are still being worked out; he unsuccessfully tried to power on the screen in one patrol car this month.

Supervisors will scan through a sample of the videos on a regular basis, looking not only for potential complaints but also for opportunities to improve the way officers handle more mundane situations. For example, Ruple said, a video may reveal that an officer is walking too close to a roadway when making traffic stops, a habit that could put him in danger of being struck by a car.

The department considered upgrading the cameras several years ago but had to save money for the $150,000 system, said Ruple, who has been Mandeville's commanding officer since Chief Tom Buell retired at the beginning of the year. Though the installation comes after questions were raised last year about officers' handling of a 2006 traffic stop involving Mayor Eddie Price, who apparently had been drinking, the incident did not spur the department to adopt the new system, Ruple said.

The department is still working out how long it will keep the videos and will draft a policy based on record-retention guidelines and the capacity of the computers used to store the files, Ruple said. Officers and supervisors will be able to flag videos from incidents that could result in a complaint so they can be kept indefinitely, he said.

When talking about the system, Ruple focused more on cases in which he feels officers have been victims of false accusations for improper or overly aggressive conduct.

"We all know we had situations in the past when, if we had the cameras rolling, we wouldn't have had a problem, " Ruple said.

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Jeff Adelson can be reached at jadelson@timespicayune.com or 985.645.2852.